Understanding Technology Enhanced Learning innovation

The word ‘innovation’ derives from the Latin word innovationem, noun of the action from past principle stem of innovare, which means “to change; to renew” (Innovation, 2017b). The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines it as “the introduction of something new; a new idea, method, or device” (Innovation, 2017a). It does not determine what is meant as ‘new’, that is, should it be something completely new or just new to that context? (See also the definition of TEL given by ACODE above). As

one can imagine, education innovation is once again seen as a diverse and complex phenomenon:

…[it] concerns a mix of new developments in pedagogy and technology, it implies changes at organisational level and human functioning and it touches on fundamental concepts like progress, change, control, functionality, anticipation, mediation, acceptation, etceteras. At an institutional level, innovation of education appears a toilsome process. It always involves various parties and many ‘educated’ people, having their own opinions and preferences. If there is agreement at all about the need to innovate, discord about the road to innovation easily arise (Westera, 2004, p. 502)

Some have more simplistic views of it:

Educational innovation is…concerned with the ways and methodologies of teaching and learning…[it is about] the use of technology to enhance our ways of teaching and learning (Boon, 2010, pp. 333-334).

In the above concept, innovation is about enhancing teaching and learning, supposedly without involving anything new.

There are also some more complex views of education innovation. Here, the use of ‘new’ runs across four points, and acknowledges improvement of products, services, processes etc:

Innovation in education involves:

 the introduction of new products and services e.g. new syllabi, textbooks or educational resources and/or

 new processes for delivering the educational institutes services e.g. use of ICT in e-learning services and/or

 new ways of organising activities e.g. ICT to communicate with students and tutors and/or

 new marketing techniques e.g. differential pricing of postgraduate courses

…so that improvements occur as a result of the innovation (OECD, 2014, p. 23)

The viewpoint above again comes with a caveat that “improvements in education [are] perceived differently depending on which objective is examined or on the point of view of the observer” with “cultural values, social policies and political goals…[leading] to differing prioritisations of these different objectives” (OECD, 2014, p. 23). With this in mind, “innovations can be linked to specific social and educational objectives such as through the improvement of learning outcomes, cost efficiency, equity and public satisfaction” (p. 23). The focus in this study is on new ways of organising activities, or specifically, with innovation in the teaching and learning space using technology to improve the quality of education. This is not to say that all innovations in this space will lead to improvement (as previously inferred), but that the ultimate goal of innovating should be to affect positive change and improve teaching and learning outcomes, in whichever form or process that arises.

Hannon asserts that the common denominator of innovation “seems to be significant change and its potential to transform practice” (2009, p. 14). However, other researchers see innovation according to its “radicalness” (Gooley, Towers, & Network, 1996; Nord & Tucker, 1987). From this perspective, innovations lie on a sliding scale of “radicalness”, with the two contrasting sides being named as “routine innovations” and “non-routine innovations”. Routine innovations are those that cause

minor changes in products, services and processes and hence require “only minor adaptations of existing organisational routines and [so] fits within the existing norms and values of organisation members", whilst non-routine innovations are often new to the organisation and “[require] the development of completely new routines, usually with modifications in the normative beliefs and value systems of organisation members" (Nord & Tucker, 1987, pp. 41-42). Routine innovations tend to be more successful as they integrate into existing social contexts whereas non-routine are less successful because of the of new and sometimes radical organisational structures and procedures they require (Gooley et al., 1996) and which means that “more learning and unlearning must take place, and therefore the more modifications must be made in existing structure and processes" (Nord & Tucker, 1987, p. 12). Innovation may be further differentiated as being small or large scale, or simple or complex, low resource intensive to high resource intensive, high cost or low cost (Downs, George, & Mohr, 1976).

However, when delving deeper, McKenzie, Alexander, Harper, and Anderson (2005) state that there are very few innovations that are completely new to HE and that rather, universities tend to adapt existing innovations to individual contexts. Consequently, their research took a view of distinguishing “between entirely new approaches, approaches that are new to organisation or faculty, or new to the higher education system in general” (p. vii). Hannan and Silver (2000) also found that an innovation in one HE setting, may have been already in place in another HE setting. Therefore, they further clarify innovation in HE as being directly related to the innovators and their circumstances. In this regard their view was that “changes may be new to a person, course, department, institution or higher education as a whole” in order to be considered innovative (Hannan & Silver, 2000, p. 10).

What has become apparent is that Educational Technology is used mainly for service-level uses rather than for innovating teaching and learning practices (see

also Lancios & Phipps, 2015), and with institutions focusing on establishing expensive, pervading technology, which is purposefully designed to have a long life. Educators are then expected to use these technologies year after year. For this reason, Selwyn (2011) advocates taking a pessimist stance when it comes to considering using technology to enhance learning and “the pessimistic educational technologist [should adopt] a mindset that is willing to recognise—and work within— the current and historical limitations of educational technology rather than its imagined limitless potential” (Selwyn, 2011, p. 715). Similar thoughts may have led Rushby (2013) to propose that, in order for educational technologies to be of value in HE settings in the future, they should “attempt to help colleagues make the best of the current, out-dated, system...and work with those who are designing the schools of the future to make them fit for purpose” (p. 57).

However, some say that the widespread adoption of teaching technologies in HE should not be mistaken for educational innovation (Gunn, 2014; Hannan & Silver, 2000; Price & Kirkwood, 2014, 2016; Westera, 2004), especially if the technology is not improving teaching and learning. This may have led Price & Kirkwood (2016) to propose that learning in HE will not be advanced without a “[b]etter understanding of the role and effectiveness of technology…without a clear articulation of what is meant by learning in higher education and, as a corollary, what might indicate that an enhancement had been achieved” (p. 228). This is supported also in Kirkwood and Price’s (2013b) literature and case study review, with the main findings indicating how few “published papers of TEL practices show evidence of a scholarly approach to university teaching” that is, informed by inquiry and evidence.

To further understand TEL innovation and its shaping forces, we need to understand how it is practiced by innovators in specific workplace contexts (at the micro-level), so as to uncover the wider institutional context within which innovation occurs (at the macro-level).

Hannan (2001) has categorised innovation within institutions as:

 individual innovation (such as the TEL champions, the lone-ranger or other enthusiastic and motivated people);

 guided innovation (these involve a team of staff working on projects or similar and are often funded by the institute or through government grants) and;  directed innovation (driven by policies, strategies and similar and can be for

efficiency reasons or for introducing a new institutional-wide teaching and learning strategy).

Hannan has also argued that innovation is mainly that of ‘directed innovation’, but that innovation is unlikely to be successful “unless the institutions concerned make such efforts to enhance the learning of their students a high priority and back this in practice as well as in their rhetoric” (Hannan, 2005, p. 984). Nonetheless, Hannan and Silver (2000, p. 976) found that there were two common strategic approaches for introducing a new technology:

 Making a technology available and actively encouraging staff to take it up (often via enthusiast led small projects funded from the centre); and

 installing a new technology and promoting its use by advertising its availability.

Both of these are approaches may be backed by a top-down strategic drive (p. 976)

However, Whitworth and Benson (2007) place a responsibility on the educational practitioner when it comes to innovating:

[e]ducationalists must learn about their work environment—its organisational structures and its technological infrastructures—if innovative solutions to pedagogical problems are to be found. Elearning solutions, whether developed through institutionalised

INNOVATION or more ‘random’ events, must still be adapted to specific contexts by individual teachers. This is (lower-case) innovation; but it is far from guaranteed that its results will fall into line with strategic INNOVATION (Whitworth & Benson, 2007, p. 4)

They emphasise the need to understand innovation as being shaped within, and by micro-level settings and within and by macro-level settings, which are the “other organisational and social spaces it encounters as it is developed and disseminated” and which in turn, gives it its emergent character (Whitworth, 2012, p. 145). Also, that innovations, and their perceived successes or failures, may be viewed differently in different contexts and that TEL innovations should “be studied not only with respect to their technical characteristics but their social ones” (ibid). I would also add that political and economic characteristics are also included.

Unfortunately, in terms of research in this area and at least in the Asia-Pacific region, “macro-level issues such as organisational change and how best to embed and sustain educational technology in national and institutional settings” (Jung & Yoo, 2014, p. 363) has largely been ignored. Further, Jung and Yoo (2014) literature review revealed that many Asian-Pacific based studies were often on a small scale and were short-term, were based on previously existing and already answered questions and additionally “did not adequately explain the ways in which technology applications facilitate learning, in which contexts and for whom and why” (Jung & Yoo, 2014, p. 361).

There are also many studies of “what should happen, and what could happen” if educational technologies are “correctly’ placed within educational settings and in promoting constructivist views of teaching and learning” (Selwyn, 2008, p. 83). However, we should also be asking “questions concerning what is actually taking place when technology meets classroom”, that is, the “state-of-the-actual” (Selwyn, 2008, p. 83). In doing so, some answers to the success of a technology in teaching

and learning could be found in the technical form of the innovation, some in its pedagogical qualities and some in the politics and social structures of the institutions (Whitworth, 2012). We should also be wary of the danger of “[focussing] too much on the technology and not enough on the learning” (Rushby, 2013, p. 53). These thoughts lead to further questions concerning perceived improvements by innovation, that is, whose innovation is it? And for what purpose? (Hannan & Silver, 2000). To answer such questions, would mean to uncover the political, economic and social drivers underpinning the innovation.

2.3 Technology Enhanced Learning innovation, Higher Education and